Mark Twain once said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”
The start of the Minnesota Twins’ season may have rhymed yet, but there’s something poetic about the team compared to their counterparts from last season in several ways.
It’s eerie enough to make a fan wonder if the Twins are replaying the 2024 season again.
Last year, the Twins started the season 7-13 before rattling off 12 straight wins to climb back into contention in the AL Central standings. This year’s squad started the season 7-15 before winning 13 straight. However, it goes even deeper than that. Minnesota immediately went 9-11 in both seasons after the streak ended.
There were also injuries to key members of the pitching staff that bit the team. The Twins starting rotation was getting by with a 4.31 ERA from the starting rotation on August 6, 2024. Joe Ryan’s injury, a Grade 2 teres major strain behind his right shoulder, kept him out for two months and ended his season. Ryan had a 3.60 ERA over 23 starts last season and was one of Minnesota’s most dependable arms that year.
Without him and Chris Paddack, the Twins relied on David Festa, Zebby Matthews, and Simeon Woods Richardson. It was too much of a workload for inexperienced players on a team trying to cling to a postseason spot because the rotation production dropped to a 4.49 ERA the rest of the year. The Twins also overworked their bullpen and had a 4.56 ERA from August 7 until the end of last year.
Compare that to this season. On June 4, Minnesota’s starting rotation had a 3.40 ERA, the fifth-best in baseball. However, staff ace Pablo Lopez suffered the exact same injury Ryan had last August on that day. Since then, the Twins’ 7.86 rotation ERA is the second-worst in baseball. Matthews also hit the shelf last week with a right shoulder strain. That means the Twins again must rely on Woods Richardson and Festa for extended periods this season.
Minnesota’s lineup inconsistency has haunted it in the past two seasons. Through the first 20 games of the 2024 season, the Twins have a 28th-ranked 67 runs scored and a 75 wRC+. From April 22 to August 17 of last season, they scored a league-best 533 runs with a 2nd-best 121 wRC+, only to have an 84 wRC+ for the final 37 games of 2024.
During the first 20 games of 2025, the Twins scored a 25th-ranked 70 runs and 77 wRC+. Since then, Minnesota’s offense is top-7 with a 110 wRC+, and their 210 runs scored in that span are 13th-best in baseball. Teams experience highs and lows throughout a season, but oscillating between league-best and league-worst is unsustainable for a contending team.
It feels like the Twins are in a time loop, replaying the beats of what happened a season ago in real time this season. Ironically, Minnesota’s offseason was nearly as quiet as the season before. They signed impact free agents like Harrison Bader and Ty France. They didn’t sign multi-year deals or make trades to acquire an everyday caliber player. The Twins decided to roll back basically the same team, and are having the same issues again.
However, most of the support behind the movement to run back the previous team was that some of these issues were unlikely to manifest for two seasons in a row. Even though it feels like the Twins are replaying 2024 again, some events from last season will be hard to recreate. The biggest one is the 12-25 collapse to end the season, where they went from a 90% chance of making the playoffs in August to missing the postseason. It feels like the Twins were betting they wouldn’t collapse like that again.
Fortunately, the Twins have been through a mess like this before. This season is an opportunity for them to learn from last year and avoid making the issues that sunk them in 2024.
The Twins will rely on young pitchers for the next two months until López can return. A benefit for the team is that their bullpen is just a bit stronger than it was a season ago. Louie Varland has come into his own as a full-time reliever, allowing Minnesota to deepen the bullpen.
Varland was a reliever last season and converted to the bullpen because Minnesota needed relievers. With a full offseason of prep, Varland has a 2.37 ERA over 30.1 innings this season. Pair that with Danny Coulombe and a healthy Justin Topa to add depth to a unit that didn’t have much outside of Griffin Jax and Jhoan Duran a season ago. The bullpen’s ceiling may not be taller, but the floor is more stable than in 2024.
The Twins have tried to find lineup consistency for the past three years. Part of that problem has been the health of their three best hitters. Byron Buxton (102), Carlos Correa (86), and Royce Lewis (82) played a combined 270 games in 2024. Correa was an All-Star in 2024 and missed most of the second half because of plantar fasciitis in his right foot.
Minnesota’s lineup fell apart without Correa. Buxton is on an All-Star campaign of his own with a .268/.327/.490 and 11 home runs through his first 51 games of 2025. The Twins haven’t had healthy campaigns from all three simultaneously. However, having these three available for most of the second half of the season can help the lineup produce at a higher clip. Again, there’s no way they’re just replaying last season, right?
The Minnesota Twins have found themselves in a time loop of their own creation. The same problems with slow starts, an inconsistent lineup, and injuries to the starting rotation have bitten the Twins in back-to-back seasons. Despite these circumstances, Minnesota still finds itself in a competitive position in the AL Central standings. Last season allowed the Twins to learn from last year’s collapse. They must ensure that history rhymes but doesn’t repeat itself this year.
